The CX300 pictured here is one of two variants BETA is developing. Credit:BETA Technologies
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly included Vertical Aerospace in the list of companies that went public in 2021 via a SPAC.
BETA Technologies of Vermont is staking its appeal to the stock market on the simplicity of its electric aircraft design, according to documents filed this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
BETA aims to be the first or among the first to receive an FAA type certificate for an electric aircraft with the CX300, the conventional takeoff and landing variant of its ALIA design, first for use as a cargo transport and later for passenger service. The CX300 has one pusher propeller in the rear of the aircraft. After that, BETA intends to certify the ALIA A250, a lift-plus-cruise design that adds four lifting propellers for a vertical takeoff and landing capability.
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BETA published its initial public offering plan, known as an S-1 Registration Statement, on Monday, announcing its intention to join the ranks of other electric aircraft developers that have become publicly traded in recent years. Among them are Archer Aviation and Joby Aviation, based in California, and Vertical Aerospace, based in the U.K. However, those companies are developing more complex tiltrotor designs: Archer’s Midnight has 12 propellers, Vertical’s VX4 has eight and Joby’s S4 has six.
The 48-page document specifically describes BETA’s approach as more “simplified and efficient” than tiltrotor designs. It contains the phrase “simplified and efficient” five times and “simple design” another five times.
“What most often keeps aircraft grounded are equipment failures due to unnecessarily complex design and weather. This compelled us to focus on simplicity and to question the need for complex tilting rotors (thrust vectoring), water pumps, variable pitch propellers, collectives, gear reductions, and state changes in software,” BETA founder and CEO Kyle Clark writes in a letter that is part of the document. “These are all absent from our simple aircraft design, and as a result are absent from our certification requirements with the FAA and our bill of materials.”
BETA has been privately funded since 2017. In contrast, Archer and Joby were among the air taxi companies that went public in 2021. Those companies all used Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, or SPACs, for their offerings, acquiring a combined $15 billion in valuations. SPACS can carry a higher valuation than a traditional IPO, which BETA has chosen.
Clark also wrote that BETA differentiates itself from the competition by doing “significantly more with less. Simplicity is again the key.” While most of the electric aircraft in development are designed to carry four passengers, the ALIA variants are meant to seat up to five passengers with a pilot or can be configured to carry cargo.
As an example, Clark wrote, the company makes its own “motors, inverters, battery packs, monitoring systems, computers, and the equipment used to build our charging network.” Because of that, BETA owns the charging stations at “airports around the country” and is “supplying our core products to others in the budding electric aerospace industry.”
This step-by-step approach toward commercial operations could position BETA well as it begins service, analyst Sergio Cecutta told me.
“Cargo was kind of a dirty word back when a lot of these companies started, because they all wanted to carry passengers as air taxis,” said Cecutta, managing partner at Arizona-based SMG Consulting, which maintains the AAM Reality Index of companies developing electric air taxis based on progress toward commercial service. “But a cargo-first approach might be a big advantage toward proving your operations and building confidence in your aircraft.”
Additionally, BETA’s strategy of first certifying the simpler CX300 means the company could “deliver to market sooner than any other AAM developer, demonstrating the benefits and constraints of operating battery-electric aircraft,” said Mike Hirschberg, a consultant for Hirschberg Heuristics Advisors and former director of the Vertical Flight Society.
This approach should help BETA generate “revenue and operational experience while they are looking at larger and/or more capable aircraft for the military and commercial markets,” he told me in a follow-up email.
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